How to Improve Customer Experiences in a Meaningful and Transformative Way

In our previous blog posts, we discussed what it means to listen effectively to customers in order to truly understand their feedback and its implications for a brand. What business leaders do with that feedback is crucial to driving significant, holistic customer experience improvement and a better financial outcome.

Data Democratization

After listening to and understanding customers by contextualizing feedback in relation to customer profiles, as well as operational and financial data, it is imperative to share that information with as many relevant stakeholders as possible. These individuals vary from company to company but may generally include marketing and operational leadership, frontline managers, and, of course, any experience teams. Every perspective and area of expertise brought to the table increases the chance of finding a better solution (and of avoiding pitfalls).

This process of sharing customer feedback, capturing ideas from across the company, and sharing with the appropriate parties is known as data democratization, and it’s critical to meaningfully improving brand experience(s). 

Governance and Prioritization

Data democratization enables breaking down organizational silos, coordinating company-wide actions, and ensuring smooth hand-offs, all of which are essential for effective customer experience governance and prioritization. There are many benefits to coordinating CX improvement efforts across a company, including creating legitimacy and sponsorship for projects, establishing the depth and breadth of support necessary for concrete improvements, and ensuring that all projects are working toward the same objectives. 

Concrete CX improvement has two components: fixing poor or broken experiences as they exist right now, and designing or redesigning new experiences. Once appropriate stakeholders have received and responded to contextualized customer data, they can contribute to a strategy to realize and implement changes. As changes are introduced, tested and measured, cohesive and effective CX governance will ensure that brands can identify, prioritize, and complete the action items that offer the biggest impact.

Closing the Loop

It’s vital that brands be especially vigilant about closing the loop(s) to achieve CX improvement. Closing the inner loop involves addressing and resolving individually submitted feedback, boosting customer retention and affinity. This process may also highlight issues that companies don’t know are occurring.

Closing the outer loop requires analyzing, testing, and fixing the root causes of any broken experiences that have broader implications beyond a unique customer. This process better enables companies to A/B test solutions and iterate the best improvements before rolling them out to customers. Brands can then collect more feedback to gauge satisfaction with changes and make adjustments as needed. Closing the outer loop ensures that a brand follows through on the changes it institutes by making the broader customer base aware of a new or redesigned experience.

Taking Improvement Further

Any improvement that results in a better experience for customers should be encouraged, but companies that seek truly transformational success also need to evaluate how changes can positively affect the bottom line.

Join us next week for the fourth and final discussion in our series to learn how to effectively monetize improvements by using a powerful paradigm that will enable your company to achieve its goals.

Want to learn more about creating an effective success framework for your CX program? Check out our article on the subject, written by  CX expert Eric Smuda, here.

Eric Smuda

CX Distinguished Practitioner in XI Strategy and Enablement

Eric Smuda has built a distinguished career out of turning venerable brands into CX powerhouses. His novel, impassioned approach to customer experience implementation changed the face of the rental car industry, in which he found award-winning ways to connect customers and companies. It’s only fitting, then, that Eric serves as a Principal of CX Strategy & Implementation at Pearl-Plaza, lending his seasoned perspective to many of the company’s strategies.